It is often desired or needed to provide various products or articles with informational materials or an insert such as booklets, instructions, or coupons. A variety of methods exist for providing such informational materials with products. The oldest and most common method is merely placing the informational materials or insert in the packaging of products. However, this method is often cumbersome and impractical for certain types of products. Moreover, it is often desirable to have the informational materials or inserts attached to the exterior of the product so that it is readily available to the purchaser or user. For example, manufacturers of certain chemicals and pharmaceuticals are often required by government regulations to provide the user with a considerable amount of information concerning its chemical or pharmaceutical products.
Accordingly, many methods have been developed for attaching informational materials or inserts to the exterior of products. One method is to attach the informational materials to the product by an elastic string. However, this method is often cumbersome and difficult to employ in an inexpensive manner. A more recent approach has been to adhesively attach the informational materials to the exterior face of the product, either directly to the product itself, or to a base label which, in turn, is attached to the product. The informational materials or insert may then be removed by the purchaser from the product without opening its packaging.
Examples of some prior art which have addressed this problem are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos.: 1,827,636 to Ames; 1,896,634 to Brown; 1,924,909 to Brown; 1,949,903 to Fales; 1,974,401 to Miller; 2,093,985 to Stansbury; 2,127,081 to Brown; 2,363,472 to Ritter; 2,614,349 to Barnes; 3,226,862 to Gabruk; 3,524,782 to Buske; 3,822,492 to Crawley; 3,926,113 to Steidinger; 4,323,608 to Denny et al; 4,529,229 to Glibbery; 4,534,582 to Howard; 4,621,442 to Mack; 4,621,837 to Mack; 4,711,686 to Instance; 4,726,972 to Instance; 4,744,161 to Instance; 4,747,618 to Instance; 4,773,584 to Instance; 4,846,504 to MacGregor et al; 4,850,613 to Instance; 4,965,113 to Jones et al; 5,127,676 to Bockairo; 5,234,735 to Baker et al; 5,262,214 to Instance; 5,263,743 to Jones; and 5,308,119 to Roshkoff.
Many of these prior art label assemblies have numerous disadvantages. For example, many of the label assemblies are very complex and expensive to manufacture. In addition, some of the prior art label assemblies have informational materials which are difficult to remove from the product.
In view of the above, it is apparent that there exists a need for a label assembly which can be employed on almost any product, and which is easy and inexpensive to manufacture. This invention addresses these needs in the art, along with other needs which will become apparent to those skilled in the art once given this disclosure.